Sony's remake of Sam Raimi's former college project turned cult horror film The Evil Dead has been given an April 12th, 2013 release date. The casting search is now underway to find some young horror victims before filming takes place next March, reportedly in New Zealand. No actors are yet on board but we do know the behind-the-scenes talent with newcomer Fede Alvarez (who directed the short film Panic Attack that has some notoriety) making his feature film debut on a script interestingly penned by the Oscar-winning Juno and Jennifer's Body scribe Diablo Cody. The approach with the new take on The Evil Dead, which remember Raimi is himself producing and is fully supporting, is for a more straight up horror take on the original premise with no "quick quips, camp humour and cool-as-ice hero" (there's no Bruce Campbell in this one) and their intention in tone has been compared to that of The Shining. Moviehole say;
"The redo plays it a lot more serious. These arent cartoonish heroes like Bruce Campbells Ash was in the original films, these are real folks with real world problems. And by golly are they in for some scary- not at all amusing -shit."
They also have a bunch of story SPOILERS that you can read if you click HERE. As for the New Zealand locale, reports suggest they are shooting near the same spot where Warner Bros made their Yogi Bear live-action/CGI hybrid. Perhaps they may even use the same cabin. Raimi himself of course is no stranger to New Zealand having produced the show Xena: Warrior Princess in the country. The general consensus around the WhatCulture! water cooler is that we need an Evil Dead remake like we need a hole in the head and we would give our right arm for an Evil Dead 4 from Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell... but alas, that time seems to have passed. Welcome to the 21st century horror film... it's tired, cliched and a rehash of the same shit we've seen a hundred times before.